Best tradeoff between size and battery life

I want a compact Lenovo with good battery life. (say 3 hours with a DVD playing the entire time)

What is a good choice?

 

one with a 9 cell battery (but be forewarned it will stick out of the back)

 

It would help if you defined compact a little more concretely. Anything from the T500 on down can do it with a large battery. On a side note, you'll get better battery life if you rip the DVDs to your hard drive, which uses less power than the optical drive.

 

ALL of the current models should easily be able to hit 3 hours with a DVD playing (I could even do this with my 5 year old T40 and 6 cell battery).

The question comes down to budget, preferred screen size (this will determine weight), and your other requirements.

If you absolutely must have a DVD drive (i.e. you can't get your video files onto a hard drive, SD card, or USB drive) the x200 will not be an option for you as it lack an optical drive.

Next up would be the x300. It is very light (<3.5 lbs. with 6 cell battery, DVD±RW, and 13.3" LED screen) and should easily be able to hit the 3 hour mark ( 4+ should even be possible). The downside here is price (although they are currently clearing house on this model so you might be able to get one for a decent price) and a relatively anemic ULV CPU (it should be fast enough for most tasks though, and the SSD will make general usage fly).

If you need more power (e.g. a discrete GPU for gaming) you would move up to the T400. This is heavier (5-5.6 lbs. depending on battery), but offers a 14.1" LED screen, a powerful processor, switchable graphics, and easily 5+ hours of DVD playback with the 9 cell battery.

That would cover your ThinkPad choices. The IdeaPads may also offer something you would like (they also use glossy screens [unlike the ThinkPads]), but I am less familiar with them.

 

No budget. 13.3 minimum screen size. I don't need performance. Size and battery life are main issues.

Why are they clearing out the x300? Should I wait for something better?

I would prefer a 6 cell battery.

Can I rip a commercial CD to my hard drive? Meaning a movie I rent from the store? Isn't that illegal? Can rented movies be ripped as easy? Is it difficult?

Can anyone comment on the U330 battery life while having a DVD run?

 

There is the x301 which is already out. You can rip a CD or DVD just fine with tools available on the internet. It is "illegal" to break copy protection but it is not illegal to make a copy of a product you own for yourself. You have fair use rights. That being said the copy protections on CDs and DVDs have been broken "forever."

 

The x300 is being cleared out due to the presence of the x301. The two models are very similar, and the minor improvements in the x301 are most likely not worth the substantial price premium. The difference between the x300 and x301 is a movement to the montevina chipset, DDR3 memory, X4500 graphics processor, and a DisplayPort on the laptop. The overall case design, screen, keyboard, batteries, etc. are identical between the x300 and x301.

The x300/x301 offer a 6 cell battery (it sticks out a fraction of an inch on the bottom, but this should not be a problem). Even with this battery and optical drive it is under 3.5 pounds (it is less than 3 lbs. with a 3 cell and no optical drive).

It is perfectly legal to rip a CD to a drive. DVDs are a bit more sketchy. It should be legal from a copyright standpoint, the problem becomes the DMCA. DVDs are an encrypted (albeit poorly) medium, and it is illegal (although to my knowledge rarely if ever enforced) in some countries (including the US) to circumvent any encryption designed to prevent copying.

 

Ripping DVDs is always illegal, but what is legal and what is moral are not necessarily the same. I suppose if you rented a movie and ripped for viewing while it still in your possession, that would be moral to me, as long as you deleted it before you returned it. If you kept it afterwords, that would be immoral.

 

GREAT info in this thread. Thanks.

The U330 might be a good choice. According to the review on this site the 6 cell could be used for 3 hours and 58 minutes in integrated mode. Can I use run a movie in integraded mode?

Comments on the U330?

 

Yes, you can run a movie in integrated mode fine. Discrete graphics are mainly necessary for gaming purposes.

 

A DVD will work quite well.

 

The big question between the U330 and x300 would be your preference for Matte or Glossy screens, high end keyboard vs. average keyboard, business class vs. consumer class.

Both of these machines should fill the role of DVD playback just fine, but they do have some important difference:

The U330 will offer a glossier screen (preferred by many), slightly more processing/graphics power (won't matter for video playback, but would matter for gaming), and consumer friendly features (e.g. HDMI).

The x300 is lighter, has an exceptional keyboard, TrackPoint, an SSD for a very pleasant user experience, superb connectivity options, is extremely well built (will survive abuse very well), and offers a very bright high resolution matte screen (preferred by me and some others).

The question comes down to which direction you want to go.

 

T500 with 9 cell. sometime back it lasted for almost 3 and half movies played from my hard drive

 

I am not surprised, but that hardly counts as a small laptop (14x10x1.3 @ 6.2 lbs.). The T400 (and x200) with 9 cell would also achieve comparable battery life and be smaller/lighter.

 

I agree with jonlumpkin: a T400 with a 9-cell seems like a good balance between size & battery life. If weight and size matter, the 6-cell battery may also be an option, although I'm not sure it could last for a long movie played from DVD (don't have my T400 yet). Note that the 6-cell still sticks out, albeit less than the 9-cell.

 

Here's a useful comment on battery life (see update at bottom of article).

The reviewer uses a 9-cell battery in a T400 for a DVD-watching test: 4.75 hours watching DVD's nonstop.